LED Headlight Retrofit: It's possible!

[Macmep]

Ok people, I'm trying to gather some momentum here:

Luminosity of standard vehicle lights:

H7 bulb - 1100 lm 20 lm/Watt
HID bulb - 3300 lm 90 lm/Watt
Modern LED - up to 300 lm per LED, and up to 100lm/Watt !!!

I already imagine a LED low beam conversion FTW!

Hope you share my excitement, and your thoughts about this…

Ok to convince you this idea is viable here is more food for thought:
If we would replace a standard incandescent bulb and chose to go with about 10 LED's it would give us ~80% more brightness (I chose 200 lm / LED @ 1000mA for this example) while using only ~25W of energy
Ok, so if we decide to do a group buy of LUXEON Rebel LEDs that would cost us 4.4$ per LED in 250 unit quantity 6$ otherwise
So if you do the math that's 88$ in LEDs minimum (2 front low beams counted), BUT it's much cheaper than HID and you won't have to change them in your life time guaranteed…

But there is also the aspect of making them fit into the head light, as well as putting them together, and I guess ellipsoid headlight owners are the only candidates for this swap, because I don't think the light could be focused properly in a standard reflector bulb…
A voltage regulation circuit is also necessary, but can be easily designed for 2-5$ (have the diagram if anyones interested)

Some usefull info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminou...ing_efficiency <-a bit outdated
http://www.utzverlag.de/buecher/40257dbl.pdf <-outdated but relevant
http://www.lumileds.com/products/luxeon/ <- LUXEON LEDs

So there's lots to think about, share your thoughts on this…
If not a full low beam replacement, we can atleast do some kind of day time running lights conversion for those who are required to drive with low beams all year round (like me)

[ATF]

LED's viewing angle = terrible.

The pattern of light you would get would be terrible. I'm sure that if this was practical, there would be plenty of china companies selling them on eBay already. I'm sure it has been thought up before with the introduction of LED Taillights etc, and it hasn't been manufactured for very good reasons I'd imagine. It's a cool concept though.

[Tefal]

its been done http://uk.gizmodo.com/2006/10/27/fir...appear_un.html and http://wheeltalk.fancal.net/?p=844

[Macmep]

LED's viewing angle = terrible.

The pattern of light you would get would be terrible. I'm sure that if this was practical, there would be plenty of china companies selling them on eBay already. I'm sure it has been thought up before with the introduction of LED Taillights etc, and it hasn't been manufactured for very good reasons I'd imagine. It's a cool concept though.

Yes I know viewing angles are bad with LEDs, thats why I said a focusing lens will be needed, and if you have a ellipsoid head lights than might work.

Also LED Headlights ARE available as Tefal mentioned, also Hella sells LED DRL, as well as other companies.
If a LED Headlights were made by a company, than their cost would be much higher than HID, because of high LED price, and also they need to pay taxes and make profit.
What I'm trying to tell here, is that it should be possible to DIY front low beams at least; and save our selves a lot of money compared to HID (also because of the DIY pleasure)
We just need to think together…

Further Links:
Focusing Lenses for Luxeon LEDs
Some useful Luxeon stuff
Article on LED headlights
Hella LED DRL

[Macmep]

OK, after more thought I think it would be better to use the same Luxeon Rebel LED's but @ 1.5A per LED. This should give us an output of 300lm per each LED, although at a cost of lower efficiency ~60lm/W
So we would only need 5 LEDs per side, and still achieve better lighting ~30% higher and ~27W of power consumption

The cost for the conversion would lower dramatically (~50$ total)

[Rizzo2008]

Ive been thinking the same thing. With a projector system you could avoid all the problems that LED had by themselves.

[Camarok]

Not to dig this up from a few months ago, but you also have to take in consideration the heat produced from these high powered high amperage LEDs

yes the rebels are bad ass, I know I have a few and lit them up.... Dear god. These things will create temps up to and over 200 F maybe 300 F, and will melt the solder for their connectivity opening the circuit if not heat sunk. I can imagine a liquid to air cooling system for something like this

Yes the cost of LEDs would be low, but you need to produce some sort of heat sink, all the circuitry to get stable voltage, wiring and housings to make in the headlights, cost will rise a bit, but yeah the leds are the main cost.

I made a dome light using some Luxeon I's and thought I had the heat sinking down, but nope, one day had my dome light on and heard "tick tick tick", as they melted the solder and fell onto the lens of my dome light !

Not saying it's impossible, the technology is out there, yes Audi and Hella are producing something, but for a DIYers like us it would cost too much to have a safe amount of light with reliability.


NOT trying to be a negative nancy just splaining things

[ZeitGeist]

LED DRLs should be good. And why doesn't OP think of LED Fogs instead? Less heat, less importance.

[Lundy]

Might be a little late in the conversation, but have you checked out this site?

http://www.superbrightleds.com/1157.htm

I emailed them to see if there are any pictures they could send me to show the high beam bulb (High power 9 watt) in action. Let me know if this is along the lines you were looking into, and I will reply with hopefully a pic to go along with.